I've tried some of the suggested solutions (seems like this has been going on since at least CS 6 which was eons ago). Things like running Photoshop as Administrator, then creating the droplet. Doesn't work for me. The droplet appears to start PS, but sometimes I get a quick error, and sometimes it takes up to what seems like a minute before the error appears.

When it takes a long time before the error appears, I'm seeing this in the Event Viewer under the System events:

The server {6DECC242-87EF-11CF-86B4-444553540000} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

Log Name:

System

Source:

Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM

Date:

2/21/2017 5:54:34 PM

Event ID:

10010

Task Category: None

Level:

Error

Keywords:

Classic

User:

red\Mark

Computer:

red

Description:

The server {6DECC242-87EF-11CF-86B4-444553540000} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

Turn off your firewall and the droplets will start working. Seems Windows Defender has been upgraded to oversee the Interprocess Communications that droplets use to talk to photoshop. Turning off the firewall will allow the communications to happen again. After your run your droplets and everything works, try turning the firewall on again and see if it works.

I have never had to turn the firewall off and on. Droplets work and worked start CC 2014. However Todaays CC 2017.1.1 update changed that now no matter what version of Photoshop I create a droplet in when the droplet is used CC 2017.1.1 will be started which is not what I want to happen for CC 2017.1.1 has bugs that I want to avoid being bitten by. Image file type associations will still start CC 2014 on my system however droplets now start CC 2017.1.1 bummer. Adobe has so many Windows Registry Keys for Photoshop.exe finding the right one that needs changing is hard. I also so no reason a droplet would be using a network connection.

I have a few versions of PS installed on my laptop. For running PS with the photobooth software, I aways start up the version of PS I want to run with the software. THEN i fireup my software with the droplets that talk to the runnning version of PS. The droplet will default to the running version before attempting to load PS. Give that a try. Fire up the version you want to work with, then fire off the droplets.

Yes on windows that is the way it will work. On a Mac it may be a different story Macs can run two version of Photoshop at once. If one version is running on a Mac a different version of Photoshop can be started. Were on windows the current running version would be used.

Disconnect the machine from the net. (pull out the ethernet cable and/or turn off the wireless transmitter for safety) Temporarily disable windows defender or other virus software. Turn off User Access Control. Reboot. With both those off, create a simple action that just loads a .jpg. Make sure that works. Then write that action out to a droplet and run the droplet. if the file loads, then the interface is working. Enable the public network firewall, try again. Enable the private network firewall and try again. Enable UAC, reboot and try again.

Using these steps will isolate which process is controlling the IPC interface.

I've seen some other ppl using admin mode on PS and maybe the droplets as a solution. Don't do that. Set the properties to run in standard user mode. Then try my test above of creating an action that loads a .jpg. Make sure that works, close the jpg, then write that action out as a droplet, run it and see if the jpg loads. Take the firewall down (isolate the pc from the net first so you don't get attacked) and see if the new droplet loads the jpg.

When you're in the CC interface online click the option to download previous version of Photoshop, install previous version and choose PS 15. When I do this I can run my actions that aren't working in updated versions of PS.